


Mother means a familiar face

by sonorousandloud



Series: I look around for you and there you are [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, what if wonder woman was captain america's mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-19 17:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19137373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonorousandloud/pseuds/sonorousandloud
Summary: When Diana realizes she is pregnant, she steps back from her work on the front taking out German bases.





	1. Diana

**Author's Note:**

> I've been trying to get back in the saddle when it comes to writing fic and thought the Captain America Reverse Big Bang would be a good idea.
> 
> I want to thank my lovely muse and artist koreanrage for creating such inspiring art! 
> 
>  
> 
> [Art masterpost](https://koreanrage.tumblr.com/post/185454481440/mother-means-a-familiar-face-written-by)
> 
> Edit: Thanks to my two lovely betas whom I forgot to thank in my rush to post this story on time: SpaceTrash and Erika-Sanely
> 
> Title comes from "Mother Poem".

 

 

When Diana realizes she is pregnant, she steps back from her work on the front taking out German bases.

Killing Ares was the culmination of a long journey for Diana, and yet, it wasn’t the end she was searching for. She came away from that fight still flush with power, feeling relief but also regret and grief.

Steve is dead. The world of mankind has nothing for her, so she buries herself in finishing the war the only way she knows how—methodically taking out bases one by one.

Ares may be gone, but Diana has learned that doesn’t mean a lot when the wheels of war have already been set in motion.

Diana is the last of the gods. If she doesn’t clean up her own brother’s mess, who will?

It’s lonely work, but it gives Diana something to do now that she’s alone among mankind and cannot return to Themyscira.

A couple of months into her mission, she starts throwing up in the mornings and craving the pickled octopus that Menalippe makes that Diana used to hate.

An enlightening chat with a woman she saves from some soldiers by the road lets her know it isn’t some particularly determined disease.

All of a sudden, Diana is no longer alone.

Though it makes something inside her twist at the thought of abandoning all the people who still need help, she cannot remain at the front of this war and risk the health of her child.

No matter her choices, Diana is still her mother’s daughter and, just like Hippolyta, it is easy for her to be selfish when it comes to her child. The world can be put on hold for her baby, who is all that she has left of Steve.

She returns to London and finds Etta Candy. Diana had not seen Etta in months, and when she finally lays eyes on her, she feels a pang of regret that she didn’t make a bigger effort to keep in touch. Diana looks her over, trying to read her. Is Etta mad? Is Diana welcome here?

Then, Etta steps forward, hugs her tight and, without warning, Diana finds herself weeping.

“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m so sorry.” Diana’s not even sure what she’s apologizing for.

“Oh, love,” Etta murmurs into her shoulder, gently rubbing her back. “I know."

She’s missed her. After Steve, Etta was her first real introduction to mankind, another example of their potential for kindness and goodness.

Etta brings Diana to her flat and makes some tea. The warmth of the tea helps to soothe her.

While Diana drinks her tea, Etta fills her in on what she’s been doing the last few months. Etta’s found more work as a secretary, though it’s for an accountant and the excitement level of the work is significantly lower than what she got to used to while working for Steve.

“But what about you? What brings you back to London? I can’t imagine it was simply to catch up with little old me,” Etta teases.

Diana presses her hand to her belly. “I-" 

It feels like the words “I’m pregnant” are trapped in her throat. But Etta takes one look at where her hand is resting.

“Oh.” Etta says as her eyes widen comically. “Oh!" 

“Yes,” Diana’s lips twist into a rueful smile. “Oh.”

Etta gets a pensive look on her face.

“You know, Steve had no one to leave his few assets to,” she says, pointedly. “He had a modest amount of savings set aside, some clothes and some books, all of which are currently in my care.”

Diana blinks at Etta, waiting for her to get to her point. She doesn’t need this reminder that Steve is gone.

“Well, I can’t think of a better person to have all of that than the mother of his child.”

Diana’s first reaction is to be stubborn and tell Etta to keep the money, but it turns out that Etta can be just as stubborn.

“And how exactly are you planning on setting up a home for the little one?” Etta asks, not unkindly.

Diana closes her mouth and accepts the money. 

It’s just as well. With her abilities and how visible she’s made herself on the front, she cannot simply return to London and stay there. She spent half her time on the front line avoiding the officers and spies sent to investigate and either recruit or remove her. The British government may not know much about her, but they know of her and that’s enough to create trouble.

Mankind might be worth saving, but that doesn’t mean she will blindly trust in their goodness like she once did, not when the safety of her child is at risk.

Diana recalls that Steve was from a place called America. It seems as good a place as any for a new start.

Chief helps set her up with papers, and she moves to America under a new name and identity. She lets him pick the name because she knows any choice she makes will stand out as unusual. 

Names are less fixed with the Amazons than they are to mankind. Even so, it feels strange to carry a name that has so little meaning to her. But Diana would do anything for her baby, the least of which is keeping her true name to herself. 

Warrior. Princess. Godkiller. All of these are also names Diana carries. Soon she will add mother to that list. 

And regardless of what the people around her call her, she will always be Diana of Themyscira.

But for now, in America, people will know her as Sarah Rogers.

 

*

 

Diana gets work as a nurse. On Themyscira, she did not spend all her time training with Antiope. Even once Hippolyta found out and gave her reluctant approval, she still had other lessons—diplomacy, art, music and medicine, amongst other subjects—that filled the rest of her hours until she was deemed old enough to guide her own studies rather than relying on tutors. There’s a lot she doesn’t know, but with her foundation and her recent refresher in field dressings, it’s enough for her to do the job. The rest she picks up along the way.

Her belly never grows very large, even once Diana is seven, eight, nine months along. She gets a few looks of concern from the nurses and doctors she works with, but since she seems so spry and healthy, they brush it off.

July 4, 1918, her baby is born. In the midst of a gray, dark war, he’s a shining beacon of hope to Diana.

The baby has fine wisps of hair, as golden as his father's and her mother’s. His eyes are huge and blue.

Diana wonders what Hippolyta would think and wishes her mother could meet her grandson. 

Her wonder is short lived. The baby stops breathing three times before the nurse can finally stabilize him.

The nurses take him away and, when they come back, recite to her a list of ailments that he will struggle with for the rest of his life. 

With her own heritage, Diana is confused about why her baby is so sick. Not only is the baby part Themysciran, he is part god. Steve seemed to be in good condition as well, keeping up with her as they traversed war-torn Europe. She remembers talking to him in Themyscira. He called himself “above average” for a man.

The hospital staff doesn’t know what to tell her, beyond claiming that birth defects sometimes just happen without explanation.

One nurse puts a consoling hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s hard right now, with the war and all,” she says. “This isn’t the first baby I’ve seen born at a disadvantage. Sometimes it’s the air from the factories and there’s nothing you can do about it."

Diana freezes. The air. Her mind flashes back to Ludendorff testing out the doctor’s poison on the town of Veld and how she wandered through poisoned area looking for survivors shortly after her night with Steve. The gases did not affect her, but they still entered her body. Steve couldn’t follow after her, and none of the townspeople survived. The poison must have remained in her for long enough to affect her baby.

At that point, Diana’s grateful her baby is even alive.

While Diana is struggling to cope with the grief and guilt, the nurses come back again and ask about names. Diana doesn’t know many male names and can barely think, so what can she do other than name her son after the best man she’s ever known?

“Steven,” she says softly. “His name is Steven.”

Then she’s asked about a middle name, and Diana is back to being baffled. Why do people need so many names? Will they even use all of them? But she doesn’t want to draw attention to her confusion, so she scrambles through her memories. Steve mentioned his father’s name was Grant. That should be suitable, right?

The nurses finally leave her alone with her baby. At a glance she can hardly tell how much baby Steve is struggling with. Heart issues plague his frail body, along with auditory problems and a warning from the doctors that a lot more could be coming.

Diana thinks she finally understands Hippolyta. As a child on Themyscira—the only child on Themyscira—her days were filled with lessons and tutors watching over her. Even during the many times she thought she had escaped, it was to an island full of Amazonians who all kept careful watch over her and reported back to her mother. It was stifling, how protective and controlling her mother could be.

Antiope had to train her in secret for years before Hippolyta reluctantly gave her approval. At the time, she found it unreasonable.

Looking at her baby now, she can feel the urge to do the same thing. Steve is so fragile. What would happen to him if she doesn’t hide him away and keep careful watch over him? Even without his ailments, he would be so delicate compared to her, both a god and a godkiller. He could get hurt so easily.

She remembers the way she always wished her mother had more faith in her, and how feeling so trapped just made her want to escape that much more. Diana makes a promise to herself to never stifle Steve the way her mother stifled her. 

Then she lets herself smile.

In the end, not even her worry over her baby’s future can completely eclipse her joy at his birth. 

A few months later, the war ends.

 

*

 

Diana gets used to responding to Sarah. She doesn’t talk about her past, beyond saying that she cannot return home. The only thing she says about Steve’s father is that he died in the war. The war is fresh enough that people don’t question her reluctance to share, excusing it as grief. They’re not entirely wrong. 

Although she cannot tell the people around her the truth, Diana refuses to hide it from Steve. Being blindsided by the truth of her heritage did not do Diana any good and although Steve doesn’t have the same hefty prophecy dogging his heels, he deserves to know his ancestry.

It starts when he is too young to remember. Every night, when she puts him to sleep, she curls herself around her baby and tells him the stories of her childhood and the legends of their people. 

She tells him stories of battles that her mother and the Amazons fought- ones that she only heard about secondhand from her own mother. She tells him about her own adventures after leaving Themyscira. She tells him the few stories she remembers his father telling her.

By the time Steve is six, he knows the stories better than the back of his own hand. He knows his grandmother is Queen of the Amazons and his grandfather was Zeus. He knows that his father was a brave warrior who made an important sacrifice to save the world. He also knows that he cannot tell a soul any of his mother’s stories.

Diana is grateful Steve never complains about the need for secrecy. He’s quite happy to keep the stories as something special just between the two of them. 

So on days when another cold has overwhelmed him, and she has him tucked into his blankets, coughing away, Diana lies next to him. He cuddles up close with his better ear facing her and falls asleep to stories of the Amazons. When he’s not too sleepy, he whispers along with her.

"Long ago, when time was new and all of history was still a dream…”

 

*

 

The stories are her legacy for him, but Diana is grateful she has something more concrete to give Steve from his father. 

Steve is so careful with the watch that she gives him. She tells him it was his father’s, given to him by his father before that. She calls it a symbol of his father’s love.

Steve Trevor may have died long before he could have known that she was pregnant, but Diana still knows, without a doubt, that he would have loved his son more than anything, and she makes sure their son knows that as well.

 

*

 

Steve is seven the first time he comes home with a black eye, huffing and puffing in righteous anger instead of one of his asthma attacks.

Diana sucks in a quick breath when she sees him.

“What happened?” Diana asks. She crouches down and checks his face and then his body for any more injuries.

“I saw Michael Kinney kicking a stray cat,” Steve says, mulish and defensive.

Diana opens her mouth but Steve cuts her off, adding, “I asked him to stop nicely first. He wouldn’t.”

That’s the year Diana starts training him.

Fortunately, Diana doesn’t require as much sleep as a regular human. When she can find the time around her long shifts at the hospital and Steve is feeling healthy enough, she takes him to the park. They need the softer ground of soil and grass if they’re going to do this. Though their apartment has privacy, Steve’s body will not take hitting the hard floors well. She finds a spot among the trees, with just enough room for the two of them to stretch out.

Steve’s health conditions means that Diana has to be careful. His scoliosis makes it hard for him to maintain a good stance. He also does not have the stamina to fight for long, so he will have to end a fight as quickly as possible if he wants to win. She focuses on dodging and effective striking. 

Teaching Steve how to fight definitely does not stop him from coming back with injuries, but she considers it a success that he comes home with fewer and fewer black eyes as time passes. 

She takes the proud, defiant gleam in his eyes every time he comes home and shares another story of how he saw something unjust happening to someone else and couldn’t just stand by and let it happen as another sign of success.

It reminds her of her days fighting and defending, she thinks wistfully.

 

*

 

Steve’s health often has him bedridden. He’ll catch a bad cold and have just enough energy to get restless and upset at his confinement. With some prodding from Diana he reads and studies, but that can’t capture his attention for too long when he’s stuck in bed for hours on end. 

Diana recalls all the times she wanted to be outside running and playing and climbing trees, instead of staying with her tutor and paying attention to lessons. She went through five different tutors with all her escape attempts before her mother finally found one with enough patience to outlast Diana’s mischief.

She considers how the only time she would stay put for her lessons was when she was learning about art and allowed to play with paints.

As much as this is something Diana wishes she could share with Steve, paints are an expense she cannot afford. She asks around, however, and manages to scrounge up a pencil and some old papers that are blank on one side.

Steve takes to it like a duck to water, and suddenly Diana has a surefire way of getting him to stay in bed when he has one of his coughing fits. She makes sure to save enough money to keep him stocked in pencils and paper.

 

*

 

Diana grew up a princess and the only child in all of Themyscira. She never wanted a thing. Every one of the Amazons she grew up among doted on her.

There are days when she wonders if this is really all that her hundreds of years of training amounts to, especially after long shifts at work where she loses a patient or has to deal with another presumptuous man attempting to take something that isn’t his, like her space or her time. 

That is one area in which she indulges herself. A man will only attempt to grab her once before he quickly learns his lesson. She extends her protection to the women around her as well.

But it isn’t enough and Diana feels restless. On those days, there’s only one thing that can calm her down. She stays up nearly the whole night, sitting beside Steve’s bed and watching him sleep. When the moonlight catches on his pale hair at the right angle, his head glints gold like her mother’s did, shining with an almost unearthly glow.

 

*

 

When Steve is nine, he gets scarlet fever. As if that isn’t bad enough, he soon develops pneumonia as well.

Diana barely breathes while the doctor examines Steve. When he’s done, the doctor takes a long sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose before he turns to Diana.

“Mrs. Rogers—“ he starts.

She won’t meet his eyes, instead focusing on a freckle on his cheekbone.

The doctor tells Diana that Steve likely won’t make the night, but he tells her not to give up.

“In my time as a doctor, I’ve learned that we can’t always predict what the human body is capable of,” he says kindly. “Have faith. If he makes it through the night, he should make a full recovery.”

Diana clings to the thought, and that night she prays desperately to Zeus to save his grandson, even though Zeus is supposed to be dead.

He has blessed her in so many ways with her own birth and through her life. Let him give her one more miracle.

Steve makes it, just barely. She calls it a miracle.

But the real miracle comes later that year.

Though Steve isn’t in danger of losing his life, his body is still recovering from a bout of severe illness. He tires easily so he’s been stuck in bed resting for weeks.

Steve gets so frustrated with his slow recovery that he escapes from the apartment one afternoon while Diana is at work when Mrs. Cassidy, from the floor below, is supposed to be watching him. Mrs. Cassidy, caught up while doing some mending, doesn’t notice Steve sneak out the door. It’s only when she goes to check on him a couple hours later that she realizes he’s missing.

Mrs. Cassidy comes to the hospital in a panic, unable to find him. 

Diana rushes back to their apartment to start her own search, swiftly outpacing Mrs. Cassidy and leaving her behind to make her way back.

But just as Diana reaches the building, she sees Steve, walking slowly, accompanied by another child.

She runs forward and grabs him, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Steve,” Diana’s breathless with relief. She starts looking him over for any blood or injuries. “You cannot run away without warning like that. What if something happened to you? You’re still sick."

His face is flushed with a returning fever, but he doesn't look guilty or sorry at all. Instead, he has a giant, blinding grin on his face.

“I was fine,” he mumbles. “I made a new friend and he helped me back."

She turns to thank the child and introduce herself. Even if the boy hadn’t helped Steve home, Diana would have been charmed by the boy’s bashful smile.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“James,” he says. “But everyone calls me Bucky."

Though Diana sometimes wishes Steve would be more careful with himself, meeting Bucky Barnes is the best thing to happen to Steve.

 

*

 

Later, Diana realizes that Steve meeting Bucky is one of the best things to happen to her as well. 

Steve has other friends, but he isn’t close with any of them like he is with Bucky. From the moment they meet, the two of them become inseparable. Unlike the neighborhood kids Steve sometimes plays with, Bucky is happy to keep him company when he’s stuck in bed with a cold. He also pulls Steve away from fights when he can and stands beside him when he can’t.

For the first time, Diana is concerned about the fights Steve gets into because now, more often than not, Bucky is dragged into these fights with him. She understands what she allows Steve to get away with, fighting and confronting other children, is not what most other mothers encourage in their children.

The first time she meets Bucky’s mother, her worries are assuaged. Winnifred invites her over one Saturday so the boys can play. Diana fears the worst. She doesn’t know what she or Steve would do if Bucky’s mother forbade him from being Steve’s friend.

When they arrive, Steve mumbles out a quick “Hi, Mrs. Barnes” before grabbing Bucky’s arm and tugging him outside to play.

Diana turns to apologize for Steve’s abruptness and is caught off guard by the friendly hug Winnifred gives her. Diana blinks.

“Come in!” Winnifred smiles at her and it’s exactly Bucky’s grin. She’s ushered in and nudged toward the dining table, which already has a plate of cookies resting on it.

“Help yourself,” Winnifred calls out as she busies herself pouring out a couple glasses of milk. Diana does, just so she has something to do.

“I was worried about Bucky for a long while,” Winnifred says to her, after she sits down in the seat across from Diana. “With his father out working so much, he took it upon himself to take care of his sisters. Suddenly he’s smiling so much less.” 

She lips tighten and her eyes soften with worry.

"I’m grateful for it, but I wish he’d just let himself be a child sometimes.”

Winnifred suddenly turns toward Diana and grasps her hands.

“When he’s with Steve, it’s like he remembers he’s just a 10-year-old boy,” she says. “He’s so much more free."

Winifred’s smile is wide and relieved. "I’m so glad the boys found each other.”

Diana beams right back at her. “I feel the exact same way."

 

*

 

Once she thinks Steve has enough of a foundation in hand-to-hand combat, she grabs the lid of a trashcan on their way to the park and teaches him how a shield can be both a defensive weapon and an offensive one.

When Steve has a handle on that, Diana unpacks her weapons and armor. She had stored them in a sturdy traveling case that she kept deep in her closet, taking it out only enough to ensure the equipment was still in good condition.

On one of her free mornings when Steve’s cheeks have a healthy glow, and his breathing sounds clear, she claps her hands together to get his attention. He looks up from one of his drawings.

“Steve, it is time for the next step in your training,” she says. “Follow me.”

His brow furrows in confusion when she leads him to her bedroom, rather than out the door and to the park. He stays confused as she pulls out the case from the back of the closet.

The confusion on Steve’s face when she opens the case for him transforms into sheer amazement.

The expression remains etched on his face as she points out each weapon and piece of armor, explaining what each item is and sharing its general history as well as her personal history with it.

When she gets to the headpiece Antiope gave her, she lingers, fingers brushing carefully over the burnished metal. Almost like it was yesterday, Diana can see her memory of the moment Antiope died. Steve stares curiously at her and her sudden silence, always patient and never pushing. This more than anything reminds her that there is nothing she wants to keep from her son. She’s told him about Antiope before, but this was one story she kept close to her heart. It was too painful to think about, even years later. She takes a deep breath and tells him about Antiope’s final sacrifice.

“The day I met your father was the same day a group of men found and invaded Themyscira,” she starts. “I know I’ve told you that part before.”

“Yes, and dad fought beside you and grandmother and the other Amazons!”

“That’s right. Well, during that battle my aunt Antiope, the one who trained me, sacrificed herself to save me,” Diana says. She reaches out a hand and smoothes down Steve’s hair. “Before I left Themyscira, your grandmother gave this to me to take with me.”

She clutches the headpiece tightly, wondering what Antiope would think of her and how she’s raised her son.

“So it’s like my watch,” Steve says. Diana’s head lifts as she turns to look at him. “She left it behind so you could have a symbol of her love to keep with you.”

Diana pulls him in close and presses a kiss to his forehead.

“Yes, exactly like your watch."

 

*

 

The Great Depression hits everyone hard. Diana thanks Zeus everyday for her biology because she can survive just fine on a lot less than the people around her. She shares what she can with her neighbors. It’s hard, but they make it through, somehow. 

Then the next world war starts.

 

*

 

Steve is twenty-one when he sits her down and tells her that he’s moving out. There’s something understanding in his face, and Diana is confused. She’s blindsided and hurt.

“Bucky and I found a place,” he says. He continues, probably telling her where the apartment is, but she doesn’t hear any of it. She wants to interrupt and ask if she did something wrong, if she smothered him despite her best efforts to let him have as much independence as possible. 

Steve stops speaking and looks at her like he knows exactly what she’s thinking. He takes her hand.

“Mom,” he says, smiling. “You need to get back out there.”

“What are you talking about?” He looks at her like she’s being difficult.

“You’re restless,” he continues. “You think I don’t see how bothered you are every time you hear news about the war?”

She wants to deny it, but she’s made it a point to not lie to her son.

“You stayed for me, all these years,” he says. “That means so much to me. But I’m fine now, and I won’t be alone.”

But she would be.

“I can’t just leave you,” she protests.

“You’re not. I know you’ll be back. You left Themyscira because you couldn’t just stand aside while a war was happening and you could do something about it. You can do something again. It’s time for you to dust off your armor and go back out there."

She closes her eyes.

“And I’ll be here waiting for you,” he added. 

She hugs him tight and returns to the battlefield. It feels like returning home.

A few months in, she misses Steve so much she can’t breathe. She has no clue how her son is doing and it’s unconscionable. She returns to Brooklyn to check on him.

When he opens his door and sees her standing there, he arches a brow at her.

“Really?” he asks, dryly, but at the same time he pulls her in for a long hug, so she doesn’t put much stock in his tone.

She spends two weeks reassuring herself that Steve is healthy and thriving, as much as he can while there’s a war going on. 

Fortunately, the war hasn’t touched America much. After that Diana returns to the front. She stays for a year this time before things change again.

 

*

 

Stories have followed Diana wherever she goes. She is stronger than a human, faster and a woman. Each on their own might make her noteworthy; all three together and her armor mean she stands out more than she’s comfortable with.

But then Diana starts hearing about someone with extraordinary strength and speed taking out Nazi bases, and this time the stories aren’t about her.

A few weeks later, she first hears the name Captain America. She doesn’t pay it any mind. She has no interest in some American soldier who may or may not be a little stronger than the others.

Then Captain America and the Howling Commandos hit the same base as her. 

Diana has just cleared out a room of Nazis when a man dressed head to toe in America’s colors bursts in, holding a shield the same way she does. There’s something about the way his jaw looks that seems so familiar to her, but with how covered up the man is, she cannot figure out more than that.

He looks behind him to make sure no one is coming and removes his helmet.

“Hey, mom.”

The floor falls out from under her feet.

“Steve,” she whispers. “But you can’t—You don’t look—How—“

She takes a deep breath.

“How?” she repeats.

He looks behind him again. Diana can hear it too, more people coming, either Steve’s men or more Nazis. He puts his helmet back on, quickly explaining that after Bucky was drafted, he started trying to find his way to the front too. (“The two most important people in the world to me are out here. How could I stay behind?”) He tells her a story of a man who takes a chance on a broken boy and gives him a body to match his spirit.

She can tell he leaves out a lot because of the situation they are in, but she can wait until later for the full story.

They clear out the base together. Diana cannot hold back the smile on her face as she fights back to back with her son for the first time. They make short work of the remainder of the base, meeting back up with the team that Steve captains outside.

And both promptly go wide-eyed with panic when Bucky sees Diana.

Bucky’s mouth gapes open like he wants to say something, but nothing comes out.

“I know the presence of a beautiful woman is a rare sight out here, Barnes, but with the way she can clearly keep up with Cap, I’d be a little more discreet about my reaction,” Dernier says teasingly, cutting through the silence.

Bucky flushes and turns to him. “That’s not wh-“

“Alright,” Steve interrupts. “The rest of you head back to camp. There’s something I need to discuss with Bucky.”

Bucky closes his mouth and glares darkly at Steve. His eyes keep flitting back to Diana, disbelief warring with the anger in his eyes.

Diana can tell the others are surprised and curious, but they head off without protest. Once the three of them are alone, Bucky puffs up, ready to start shouting at Steve, but Diana cuts in before he can.

“Steve was forbidden from telling anybody the truth about me,” she says.

Bucky stares at her. “And what truth is that? Last I knew, you had returned home to reconcile with your estranged family!”

“The truth is that I’m not exactly human. I’m a lot older than you think, and my name isn’t Sarah Rogers.”

Bucky looks lost. He clearly doesn’t know how to respond. Diana gives him a quick summary of her past: half god, half Amazonian, growing up on a secret island, leaving that island and meeting Steve’s father.

“The secret of Themyscira is not one I was willing to share with anyone other than Steve, who deserved to know his own history,” she finishes.

Bucky swallows, looking at the ground.

“So why tell me now?” he asks.

“Well, it’d be a bit hard to explain this away,” Steve murmurs. “But you’re also family. The moment we met, you became our family. This was a long time coming. I’m just sorry we didn’t tell you sooner.”

“And the whole—“ Bucky waves his hand over Steve’s body. “Does that have anything to do with you being part Amazon?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admits. “But part of me thinks that’s part of why I took so well to the serum when Schmidt didn’t.”

“Who’s Schmidt?” Steve turns to Diana and he explains a little more about what had happened to him in the time they were apart.

“So what now?” Bucky asks. Diana smiles fondly at him, ever practical and always on their side, even after finding out they had been lying to him for years.

“Well, we go find the rest of your team,” she says. “I don’t think we can get away with explaining nothing to them, but we can’t exactly admit I’m your mother or tell them about Themyscira.”

Diana frowns.

“Um, sister maybe,” Steve suggests. Bucky shakes his head at that.

“A sister that you’ve never mentioned before who also happens to be super strong and fast even though they know full well you were injected with a serum? I don’t think so,” he says.

Exasperated, Steve sighs, “Then how do we explain her abilities and how we know each other, as well as your reaction to her?"

“Someone else who was in the program, but because she’s a woman, her existence was buried or something,” Bucky says. “They wouldn’t know enough to contradict that.”

“And your reaction?” 

Bucky groans, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Well, they’re just going to have to think I was that blown away by a pretty woman,” he grins ruefully at Diana. “Not that you aren’t absolutely beautiful, Mrs. R—Diana, but you’re basically my second mom.”

Diana laughs and pulls both boys into a hug. She’s missed them so much.

 

*

 

Diana travels with Steve and the Howling Commandos for a few days, but she can’t stay, not when Steve works for the American government and has obligations to them. The nature of Steve’s team and missions gives him a lot more freedom than most soldiers, but he still needs to report back and follow enough of his orders that the military will continue to turn a blind eye to the ones he ignores.

They do still team up when they cross paths, and it’s the most alive Diana’s felt in a while. As she gets to know the rest of the Howling Commandos, it almost feels like she’s back in the First World War, fighting alongside Steve the first, Sameer, Chief and Charlie.

Though she still spends most of her time fighting and traveling solo, she doesn’t feel alone.

 

*

 

She is on her own when she finally hears about Bucky and Steve far too late for her to do anything about it.

She hunts down the Howling Commandos. She needs to know for sure. Dum Dum Dugan’s eyes are red as he tells her about how both her boys died one right after another. Bucky fell off a train into a deep canyon. Steve crashed a plane containing a devastating weapon into the water and hasn’t been seen since.

Diana’s mind is blank for the longest time. The first thought to finally run through her mind is “like father, like son,” and she can feel something in her chest breaking.

She wonders briefly if she cursed her son by naming him after his father, but then she chides herself for diminishing Steve’s bravery and sacrifice like that.

She doesn’t remember it but thinks she thanks Dum Dum before she leaves. The next weeks are a blur to her as she tears her way through as many Hydra and Nazi bases as she can find, barely sleeping or resting, before she finally collapses, anger burned out of her, sobbing into the ground of the latest destroyed base.

Diana is alone again.


	2. Steve

 

 

After hitting the water, the first thing Steve sees is his mom.

That’s what he thinks.

He blacks out first, when he crashes the plane, for a length of time he doesn’t know. As he does, he wonders what death will be like.

When Steve was younger and so often sick, he thought about what would happen when he died. When he was really little he thought he might close his eyes and wake up on Themyscira and finally meet his grandmother and the other Amazons he’d heard so many stories about.

As he got older, he learned about heaven and hell, but when your grandfather is a god, it’s hard to take that kind of thing too seriously. Instead of worrying about it, he told himself it didn’t matter what happened as long as he could stay by his mom’s side. She has always been the immovable, unchanging force in his life. If there is one thing he can rely on, it is that she will be there.

But what actually happens is Steve hits the water, he remains unconscious and unaware for 70 years, and when he finally opens his eyes again there’s a bright light above him and a woman leaning over to check on him.

Steve relaxes, because if his mom is there that means he’s safe and he has no reason to worry. He lets himself fall back into the darkness.

The next time he wakes up, it’s to a room that smells wrong with a game from the wrong year playing in the background. He wakes up and it’s 2011.

He wakes up and he’s alone. 

He isn’t alone for long but the initial relief swiftly fades. SHIELD can’t seem to decide whether they want to isolate or suffocate him.

At first, he thinks they won’t leave him alone because of that escape attempt he made when he first woke up. An agent waits outside his room at all times. Doctors and nurses come and go, taking his blood and doing all sorts of tests.

Then he spends three days without a single guard or doctor or SHIELD agent, with nothing to do but stare at the wall.

Finally a doctor comes in again and he asks if something happened. The woman—Graves, according to her nametag—looks at him and says they were just working on the samples and data they gathered, and actually they needed to run a few more tests, so could he hand over his arm? 

It happens again in a cycle of varying lengths. He wonders if it’s something else they’re testing him on. How long before he snaps. If maybe the ice killed his brain. Or if they just think he doesn’t need any genuine extended and regular contact with other humans.

No one introduces themselves to him before sticking syringes in him or asking him invasive questions. He’s never felt less like a person.

At least he has plenty of time to plan a serious escape.

It’s possible that one of SHIELD’s employees senses something because the next day a SHIELD agent—Faye—delivers a set of folders to him.

“What’s this?”

“It’s—ah, records,” the agent says. Steve stares at him for a few long seconds. He raises his brows. He nods pointedly. The agent doesn’t say anything further.

“Records of what?” Steve finally prompts.

“Records of the—of people you used to know,” Faye says.

He sucks in a sharp breath, not expecting that. He takes the folders, his arms feeling unexpectedly weak. He barely notices Faye leaving the room again. He sits down on his bed. It takes a while before he can gather the courage to look at the files.

Once Steve opens them, he spends days pouring over the heavily redacted files SHIELD gave him on all his old friends. 

They don’t look like they’re redacted, of course. There aren’t sections of the files painted over in black. But there are areas that Steve can tell a lot of information was brushed over.

 

*

 

Margaret Carter. 

After the war, she continued working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. After that, she started SHIELD together with Howard. She got married, had kids and retired. She’s still alive.

 

Timothy Dugan.

He led the Howling Commandos after Steve crashed the plane. Followed Peggy into SHIELD when the Commandos disbanded after the war. Steve figures the nothing that follows that probably means he’s still with SHIELD. He’s still alive.

 

James Morita.

He retired after the Howling Commandos, got married, opened a general store back in his hometown, had kids and then grandkids. Still alive.

 

James Montgomery Falsworth.

Returned to Britain, took over the family business, died of cancer a few decades later.

 

Gabriel Jones.

Remained in the military. Met someone after finally retiring from the military, opened a diner with her. Dead.

 

Jacques Dernier.

Returned to France, worked in intelligence for many years before starting up a security company of his own. Died last year.

 

*

 

Steve cries, and he doesn’t even care that SHIELD is probably watching because half his friends are dead and he damn well deserves to cry.

 

*

 

His return is so classified that Peggy, Dum Dum and Jim aren’t allowed to know, so even the friends still alive might as well be dead for how out of reach they are.

The agent who tells him this has a very forced sympathetic look on his face. Steve idly thinks to himself that he ought to make a point of telling Fury to send the agent to some acting classes but, judging from the way he’s been treated so far, SHIELD doesn’t care one whit whether Steve knows that they’re lying to him.

SHIELD seems to think these folders will be hard for Steve to process alongside everything else, so that’s when he’s introduced to his first regular source of contact: hour-long sessions with a SHIELD shrink every other day.

Steve really appreciates it because instead of staring at his wall again for an hour, he can stare at a different wall for an hour.

“-eve? Steve!” Steve blinks and turns to the shrink, Kevin. He was actually given a first name this time, probably to help encourage trust, but Steve doesn’t even know if he can trust that Kevin’s his real name. 

“Sorry, I was distracted,” Steve says. He smiles politely. Kevin doesn’t mention that Steve has been “distracted” for half their session that day and for every other session they’ve had so far. “What did you say?”

“I said, Steve, that I’m just here to help you and to listen, but I can’t do that if you don’t take a step forward yourself,” Kevin says, concerned and vaguely condescending in tone.

“Be hard to step anywhere when I’m sitting down,” Steve makes his smile just a bit brighter.

Kevin’s lips twitch into an insincere smile. “We can start small. Tell me what you think about the future so far.”

“Hmmm,” Steve hummed. “Well, not much to talk about when I’m kept in a tiny room almost always, with nothing to do except sometimes get my blood drawn.”

Kevin leaps on that like Steve hoped he would. He’s allowed to explore a bit more. Just the one floor, and even then some rooms are locked with technology that Steve can barely see, let alone understand. But it’s a step in the right direction. They also give him some books, a few fiction ones, pleasant but harmless reads about road trips and murder mysteries. He’s also given some sanitized history books.

He actually is interested in the books, but they aren’t so interesting that he doesn’t give himself time to continue planning his escape.

Steve continues working on Kevin and soon he’s given access to a gym. He destroys a sandbag. Or two. Or ten.

He’s “not a prisoner,” another nameless SHIELD agent tells him as she points out all the places he can’t go, but remaining within the limited areas he’s allowed access to is “in his best interests.”

Right. Steve takes careful note of the door she leaves through, which is a different door from the one the doctors come through. They slowly start teaching him how to use some modern technology, like computers and the internet.

 

*

 

Steve feels just like when he was touring with the USO girls and found out Bucky had been captured. He’s trapped and been made useless, but none of that is going to stop him when he has somebody he needs to get to. 

Because one thing stands out glaringly in the files passed to him, in the single debriefing on what happened in the time he was frozen and in the history books they let him have is the complete lack of information on his mom. Real information on his mother, that is. 

As far as SHIELD knows or cares about, Sarah Rogers is dead. Steve’s not going to ask about Diana of Themyscira and risk SHIELD getting suspicious. With his mom’s heritage, there’s no way she’s dead. That means she’s out there, hidden, with no idea that Steve is alive and awake.

He has to find her, so he watches, waits and plans, but he doesn’t say a thing other than to occasionally point out to his therapist that he’s done exploring the very limited space he’s been given to see how much SHIELD is willing to loosen their reins.

Fury visits him occasionally and speaks to him, softening him up for something. He hasn’t said what it is yet, hasn’t dangled whatever carrot he thinks he has. 

Fury likely thinks he is depressed. Presumably because Steve’s SHIELD-appointed therapist thinks he’s depressed. Listless, no goals, feeling displaced, from what Steve can read upside down from his notes.

The displacement is real, at least, but no goals? Listless? Heck if Steve’s going to tell SHIELD anything about his mother or his plan to escape SHIELD to find her. The impression they have of him will only help with his escape anyway.

SHIELD tries a different tack with him. They bring up his back pay and actually ask him if there’s anything he wants to buy. He asks for books about New York and how the city’s changed. He gets lucky and a couple of the books have maps.

Lucky for Steve, there’s been so much propaganda about him that half the people who think they know him don’t realize how insubordinate and stubborn he can be or how observant he really is.

The former means SHIELD doesn’t expect him to be planning an escape. Well, that and the listless depression. Not realizing how observant he is means SHIELD allows him more access to the building he is trapped in while also getting careless around him.

It’s definitely a start.

 

*

 

But then Fury introduces him to the Avengers and aliens come pouring out of the sky.

All of Steve’s plans are derailed while he attempts to work with a group of combative strangers to save New York.

The Avengers are an interesting group of people, nothing like the Howling Commandos.

It might not be fair to compare them, but he’s had a lot of time on his hands to dwell on his old friends. They were familiar and worked with him like a well-oiled machine from the start. Steve cannot say the same about him and the Avengers.

Romanoff is all right, even if she seems distant, a lot like those practically nameless SHIELD agents Steve has gotten used to, just a lot better at acting.

Thor is certainly different, but the whole Norse god of thunder thing doesn’t really throw Steve off. It’s easy to accept that when his own mother is the daughter of Zeus.

Banner seems nice, although he seems to be holding something back. When Steve finds out about his experiments with gamma rays and attempts to replicate Steve’s super-soldier biology, he feels a little guilty. Though he can’t say for sure, he’s always thought that part of the reason the super-soldier serum worked so well on him was because he’s a quarter demigod and a quarter Amazonian.

Stark Jr. is completely human and way too much like his father. Howard was always pushing his buttons and riling him up until his words came out all wrong, and Tony Stark seems to have the same effect on him.

Steve tells himself to calm down and be patient, but then Stark opens his mouth again and before he realizes it the two of them are nose to nose and saying some mean, truly ugly things to each other.

So the Avengers definitely aren’t the Howling Commandos, but Steve has done a lot more with a lot less. Once they have a plan to carry out and aliens to fight, they actually make a decent team. Another SHIELD agent joins them, just as distantly blank as Romanoff and carrying a bow and quiver. 

Together they save the day and then Stark nearly sacrifices himself to save them all after the government tries to destroy the city- like that was somehow going to stop the aliens. Steve is reminded of his mother and her belief in the potential that mankind has.

After that, they start digging people out from the rubble. SHIELD and Stark’s robot suit have scanners that can tell where people are trapped, which helps.

 

*

 

Hours later, the six of them are exhausted and barely awake on their feet. Fresh-looking SHIELD agents come to take over and one agent tells them they have orders to go get debriefed before they leave. Stark herds them to a restaurant instead and no one has enough energy or the desire to resist. 

They sit there, eating the food that Stark paid for, and Steve gathers enough energy to lean over and thank him.

“It wasn’t right, what I said,” Steve says. “I didn’t know you well enough to be making those kinds of assumptions about you, and you didn’t deserve it.” 

Stark stares at him, blinking rapidly.

“Did I—Did I fall asleep? Am I asleep?” He waves his hand in front of his own face, then turns to the others to ask them. “Did any of you hear that? Am I actually hallucinating right now?”

Steve takes a deep breath and reminds himself why he needed to apologize. “You are awake.”

Stark looks blindsided. “Well, uh, apology accepted, uh, Cap.” He looks so uncomfortable that Steve just nods and goes back to his food, letting the exchange end there. 

Perhaps an hour or so later, while the six of them are still listlessly sitting there and eating, Fury walks in, looking as annoyed as usual.

The six of them barely react to him, and Steve can practically see Fury shifting gears as he registers how tired the six of them are. Fury takes a deep breath. 

“Debrief tomorrow, 0800. Now shove over.” Fury grabs a chair, sits down and pulls a basket of fries closer to him.

 

*

 

After they’re done eating, Steve goes back to his SHIELD-assigned room. There’s no way he can escape right now. Besides, people have seen him. They know he exists. SHIELD can’t secret him away anymore.

It also saves Steve some trouble, because he knows his mom will hear about him and come find him.

The next day, Stark shows up an hour and a half late. They debrief. They talk about the future of the Avengers. Fury doesn’t get a lot further than “on call for future disasters” before Stark interrupts him to say they can worry about it the next time the world’s about to end.

“Okay,” Stark claps his hands once. “We good? We done here?” He looks around the room and nods once. “Perfect. I’m getting the hell out of this dump then.”

Everyone stands up to head off then. Stark pulls Banner aside. Steve heads over to Fury. He honestly doesn’t have much of a plan, but he can’t just sit around any longer now that he’s been outside.

“I want a motorcycle.”

Fury raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“I know SHIELD has all sorts of vehicles here, most likely including at least one motorcycle. I want one. Right now.”

“And what makes you think you get one?”

“Take it out of all that back pay you said I have. But the public knows I’m around now. You can’t lock me in and keep me hidden away anymore, and I want to see for myself what’s changed about the world.”

He hopes Fury gets the hint, because Steve knows full well SHIELD could lock him in, throw away the key and get away with it, but he also plans on making a big stink about it if they do.

Fury gives in. Outside, he finds a sleek new motorcycle waiting for him. He also sees Stark and Banner outside, idling in a shiny, modern-looking car.

“Hey, Cap! Come over here,” Stark calls. He jogs over. As he gets close, Stark tosses him something. It’s a thin and black little piece of technology. He presses the button at the bottom and the screen lights up. “It’s a Starkphone. Latest model. Encrypted and unhackable. Unlimited data. You’ll get service in the damn Marianas Trench, okay? Do you know what that is? Never mind, not important. Drop me a text if you need anything. You do know how to text, don’t you?”

Steve’s not entirely sure what all of those words mean, but he does know how to search the Google. He also knows how to text. “Yes.”

With that, everything falls into place. He drives the bike to a café and pulls out his new phone. He looks through his contacts and finds one labeled “Tony Stark.”

 

 

To: Tony Stark

Hi Stark,

Thank you for the telephone. There is something I need your help with. Would you be able to check my motorcycle for trackers and remove them?

Sincerely,

Steve Rogers

 

From: Tony Stark 

Usually u wait 3 days be4 textg some1 ;) anw removg trackers is eazy peezy just come to tower

 

 

Steve thinks he understands the message. He heads to the tower.

 

*

 

Steve stays somewhat visible. He needs his mom to be able to find him, after all.

It also lets him get away with removing the trackers because the SHIELD agents tailing him are keeping up with him.

He just drives, barely thinking about where he’s going, but aiming for more populated areas. 

It’s when he reaches Chicago that he sees her. His mom has her hair braided back. She’s wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans. She looks exactly like she did the last time he saw her, back in the ‘40s.

He can see that her eyes are wide and watery.

It’s hard, but he walks toward her and then straight past, whispering as he goes, “National Hellenic Museum. Got to lose a tail first.”

He loses his SHIELD shadow in fifteen minutes and makes his way to the museum. He pulls on a cap and sunglasses, switches out his jacket.

He finds Diana standing in front of an old clay pot and pulls her into a hug. 

“Mom—“ he chokes out. She smells just like he remembers, like marjoram and thunderstorms, scents that have always meant safety and comfort to him.

She’s crying into his shoulder, gripping him tight. She’s using her strength and it nearly hurts. She pulls away to look at his face, looking like she can’t believe he’s real.

“Oh, Steve, I thought I’d lost you,” she says softly. It’s like an echo of the moment they came across each other at the Nazi base during World War Two. “How are you here?”

The few people in the museum are starting to stare. He doesn’t think anyone recognizes him, but he doesn’t want SHIELD to find him again so soon, so he pulls her to a bench in a corner so they can continue to speak.

“Honestly, I don’t know either,” he breathes out. He turns to Diana, and it’s like a weight has lifted from his shoulders. There’s something reassuring about having someone he can trust with him, especially when it’s his mom.

He explains what little he does know about what happened to him—crashing the plane, waking up in SHIELD’s custody, the testing and isolation, the aliens. She sits there listening, hand drifting out to touch him every few minutes like she needs the reminder. His shoulder. His arm. His ear.

“But what about you?” he asks. “It’s been 70 years. How have you remained under the radar?”

“Connections,” Diana says, smiling. “I’ve found that letting a select group of people in on the secret can do wonders to helping me keep it from the people I really don’t want knowing.”

“Huh,” he says. His mouth twists into a rueful grin. “What about if the people you don’t want knowing is that select group that knows?” 

“Well…” she says slowly. “That will likely take some maneuvering.”

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen now. He needs to find out what his mom has been doing the last 70 years and what her cover story is. He can’t hide from SHIELD indefinitely, so that will be something he needs to deal with in the near future.

Even so, all of that seems trivial, because he’s not alone anymore. 

Bucky might be gone, and that still hurts to think about. The rest of his friends are either gone or out of his reach for the moment. But the one person who’s been untouchable by time and the rest of the world, his rock and his protector, his mom, is here with him.

Everything else they can figure out together.


End file.
